Yep, I’m back again with the brown sweater and a book I’m only sort of reading. I don’t even have an entertaining story about a rubber chicken to share with you this week (although you’re welcome to scroll down and read last week’s story about a rubber chicken). Even the slanting evening light in this photo is a cliché.

I have, however, read a few chapters of The House of Mirth, which is almost exactly like The Portrait of a Lady, minus about 300 pages and a couple hundred uses of the word ‘desultory.’ Like Isabel Archer, Lily Bart is ‘poor,’ which means that she employs only a couple of dressmakers. Everywhere she turns, she meets another possible suitor – it’s like an episode of Seinfeld that way – and she hasn’t chosen yet but it’s a guarantee she’ll marry the wrong one. Not to give away the ending or anything.

Oh, and one more thing – there’s a character in it named “Mrs. Peniston.” Yes, really!

Yes, that was what I meant – pen rather than peen. Another favorite of ours is a regional restaurant here called Phu-ket. Poo-kay. Which is now what we say when we mean something else. Whatever! Phu-ket!